The Controversial Years...
Weeden's creation of the Third Market for the block trading equities eventually reshaped not merely the firm, but the entire landscape of Wall Street. The ’Sixties saw the rise of institutional investors-insurance companies, pension plans and mutual funds-to dominance in Wall Street. But as the institutions' clout grew, so too did their frustration with New York Stock Exchange's refusal to grant volume discounts on the commission rates it charged on large block trades.

Against that backdrop, Weeden's provision of a Third Market, in which institutions could trade large blocks of stock, off the exchange, on a net basis, proved irresistible to many. The Third Market grew rapidly. By the early ’Seventies around a dozen third market firms—of which Weeden was by far the largest—were handling close to 10% of all trades in Big Board-listed stocks—off the exchange. And the threat posed by the Third Market to the comfortable livelihood of Wall Street's club was palpable.

Weeden's Third Market trading activities, no surprise, were anathema to the New York Stock Exchange establishment, which had grown fat and happy by keeping commissions fixed at high rates and by barring member firms from trading in other marketplaces—even if those other markets offered better bids. That Don Weeden also led the campaign, during the early ’Seventies, to get the Big Board to abandon fixed commission rates, did nothing to burnish the firm's reputation among the Street's old guard.

It was not a battle Don Weeden eagerly joined. He knew, as he wrote in a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission, that forcing the NYSE to adopt negotiated commission rates would undermine the ability of his own non-member firm, and that of other Third Market firms, to undercut the Exchange's high fixed tariffs. But negotiated commissions, Weeden recognized, were part and parcel of his push to level the playing field for investors by eliminating anti-competitive practices at the Exchange.

What's more, while Weeden's high profile against fixed commissions won the firm few friends among competing brokers, it was very much in the interest of the firm's institutional clients—its foundation and always its focus. In the end, the competitive heat turned up by Weeden's aggressive Third Market trading and Don Weeden's relentless campaigning against fixed commissions—not to mention the SEC—proved potent prods. The New York Stock Exchange was forced to do the right thing. On May 1, 1975, “May Day” the Big Board's commission rates were deregulated. And a new era of competition began in Wall Street. Twenty-three years later, Don Weeden was recognized as the “Father of Electronic Trading” with a Lifetime Achievement Award from The Chicago Stock Exchange.